Slashdot Mirror
Google Chrome 25 Will Disable Silent Extension Installation
An anonymous reader writes "Google on Friday announced that it is changing its stance for silently installing extensions in its browser. As of Chrome 25, external extension deployment options on Windows will be disabled by default and all extensions previously installed using them will be automatically disabled."
Thank you
I hope this caused some synapses to fire.
It's pretty awesome.
How exactly can they block silent installs if the process that wants to add the extensions has the same rights as Chrome -- or strictly higher? The other program can emulate whatever way Chrome uses to mark something as legitimately installed.
It's only a feel-good measure, that can stop only "nice" extensions which would play by the rules in the first place, and does nothing against malware or the operating system itself (looking at you, Microsoft).
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Chrome 299729548 is even better.
I'm not sure if I fully understand the ramifications here...what exactly will this mean for my Firefox?
While I love the Google's Chrome browser, it is my opinion that its UI is getting tired. Anyone agree? A refresh wouldn't do any harm at this point. Would it?
Someone needs to get a handle on these trolls on this site or I'm calling the POLICE!!!!!
I think malda himself might be trolling and I'm SICK OF IT!!!
Will this block auto installing adware such as Babylon and MyWebSearch?
Those infest almost every computer out in the open, installed with Firefox or Chrome.
People tend to click on DownloadLinks which are carefully crafted to look like legitimate downloads for the things they were looking for in the first place.
unplug the speakers
I mean, I know Chrome is the reason that Mozilla went all crazy with their version numbering. But I gotta say, I've never once noticed just what version I'm running at any given time. And given the... unique design compared to classic browsers, I don't even know how I'd check.
What the hell. Since 2008?
Who the hell does their versioning? That's just pathetic.
were silent installs allowed in the first place?
Anger issues? C'est vrai! Semms obvious to me. I think the tongue thrust out ( like so :>p ) and the fucking this and fucking that pretty much can be interpreted that way. Maybe the training isn't going well?
But what else isn't totally is going to crap these days? Hey I know I have this ten year, debugged, seasoned operating system working flawlessly and controlling 100 million dollars a year. Let's format that bitch and put windows 8 on, after all it's only $14.95. Who cares about 100 million a year....
Click to download "Crippled Chrome (El Diablo Snuf) for WIN (20MB installer) , MAC (34 MB sit file) , LINUX (10 MB tar.gz)
Here's my predicted Future for Chrome.
the SETTINGS in Chrome.
Settings | Extensions | Delete All Extensions
or about:extensions
Settings | Advanced | Randomly Delete and Turn on/off Extensions
the Chrome Nightly Devs
Settings | Advanced | Uninstall Chrome
or just about:uninstall
Hey I know, if I FIREWALL CHROME off from the web, it can't get updates!!
PERFECT!! Actually better yet, remove the possibility of using Extensions at all. e.g. No Extensions to begin with Close the source code and kiosk it so only people drooling will use it
Thanks for the advice and the info about Comodo Dragon. I had not heard of it before your post. I may install it and give it a spin...
.
The wikipedia page on it ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comodo_dragon ) has more info about chromium vs. comodo though the last two items look like they were respun by someone who prefers google chromium, while comodo's page ( http://forums.comodo.com/help-cd/how-is-dragon-better-t67998.0.html ) points out that google keeps track of the time it was installed (the better to track/identify you with?) and spins the usage of comodo's dns servers as a positive (hmmm....) rather than pointing out that the tracking aspects are just being transferred from google to the comodo group. Wikipedia page about Comodo has some interesting information about ( at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comodo_Group#2010_Affiliate_Registration_Security_Breach ) a couple of problems with SSL certificate verification.
There is one MAJOR difference between Chrome and Dragon when it comes to Dragon and it is this: If you don't want to use Comodo Secure DNS? It asks you on install, simply say "no" and that is that. You can also switch it on and off at will in the options whereas last I checked there is NO easy way to just switch off the phone home in Chrome.
Now that said in the end you have to trust somebody somewhere to give you DNS, unless you are gonna run your own DNS server and not only is the Comodo Secure DNS pretty dang fast but I've seen plenty of times where it has stopped a page from loading because it had been infected with malware. Sure enough I would fire up a test box at the shop and let the page load and it was malware city.
But at the end of the day you can use as much or as little of Comodo's services that you want, its all easily switchable in seconds, and it fixes the two problems you were complaining about with FF while giving you some nice extras you can take or leave. If you prefer the Gecko engine they even have their own spin on FF called Comodo IceDragon. Its nice and has similar security features but it still uses more CPU and memory than Dragon proper.
At the end of the day I'm just a little shop guy that tripped over Comodo AV one day when AVG wasn't cutting the mustard and decided to see if they had more free stuff and found they had a ton and most of it was really good. Give it a spin, if you don't care for it just toss it in the recycle bin, no muss and no fuss. Oh and if you have to deal with infected boxes like I do might want to check out Comodo Cleaning Essentials, its free, gets rid of more nasties than malwarebytes IMHO, and also runs great on a stick, its a great tool to add to your toolbox.
Frankly the only real complaint I have about any of the Comodo stuff is they no longer support Comodo Time Machine, if you can find a copy it still works great on anything up to Windows 7 (as long as you don't have a dual boot, it won't screw anything up, just won't install on a dual boot) but they quit supporting it. Frankly if you deal with virus prone people its like a gift from the Gods, it lets you set up a hidden partition with daily snapshots (you can even lock a snapshot so you can have your very own OEM hidden partition, with all the drivers and software preloaded) so if they fuck it up beyond even booting you can tell them just push the home key on boot and in 20 minutes they are back up like nothing happened. great tool, damned shame they don't support it any longer as I haven't found anything that will let you make your own hidden OEM partition like that easily.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I will not trust in Chrome until they stop adding their plugin into Firefox.
If they care so much about what's run inside Chrome, why do they inject their Google Updater into Firefox and put their update code in a bazillion places?
Yes, they say that it's mean to always have the latest version available, but if I'm not using it daily, why should I waste CPU cicles and bandwith trying to upgrade it until I use it?
I have Chrome installed only because I need to use it for testing, but I strongly dislike its UI and its behavior, I just wish that it would be a normal program that only tries to update itself when I run it.
I think we've entered the happy period of time when all three major browsers are pretty much equal, and users can pick which on they want to use based purely on aesthetics and functionality.
IE10 is pretty competent, I just can't stand its UI, and I have a historical bias against it. I also worry that MS with withhold updates from people who don't buy their newest OS at some point.
Firefox is okay. It feels a bit clunky to me, but that probably is subjective. I don't really trust Mozilla's development cycle anymore, though. They like to change things for the sake of changing things, and like to add new crap that I'll never use to often. Good browser still, just not to my tastes.
Chrome is also okay. It can be wonky, and often its stability is a bit off. 99% of the time it works fine, and then it drops a page for no reason. It also loves RAM, a lot. Not a big deal on modern systems, but still something to consider. Good also has some odd practices, dropping and adding features for arbitrary feeling reasons. If your on anything but the release channel, Google can feel a bit capricious. This is my browser of choice, but mostly out of habit, and its Android integration. I used to be a Firefox (Firebird, Phoenix) fanboy, but Moz has moved in directions I didn't like, so I moved on.
As for the others:
Opera, its fine. It works. But no one cares.
Safari, it also works. But the Apple's dev and updating strikes me as a bit dubious, and not at all user-transparent. I also don't trust them to support, or upgrade across OS increments, just like MS, but worse. I also don't like how Safari works or functions. This doesn't mean its bad, it just means I don't like it.
Comodo, I don't trust them. Probably a good Chromium port, but I don't know enough to actually trust them.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
So when Microsoft decided to enable do not track me by default, everyone says "you're preventing users from making the choice of being tracked!" The comments here were ridiculous. but Google decides to disable silent extensions and no one is throwing a tantrum about how they're preventing users from making that choice. What gives, people?
Privalert lasted all of about a week. They pulled it for "stability" reasons with an auto-update. https://forums.comodo.com/news-announcements-feedback-cd/23400-update-removes-privalert-t89212.0.html
I suspect the real reason they pulled it was that many people pointed out it was exactly the same as Ghostery but without Ghostery being given any credit. Exact same process flow, exact same number of items in the blocklist, despite their CEO claiming on their forum that it was entirely their own code and entirely their own list. The only differences were the icon and a few less preference settings, but the ones that were there were identical. https://forums.comodo.com/news-announcements-feedback-cd/comodo-dragon-ver-232-is-now-available-for-download-t89032.30.html
I like a lot of Comodo stuff, I use a lot of it, I have Comodo Internet Security running right now, System Utilities (new name for Comodo System Cleaner), and I do have Dragon installed. But they have a massive and unsophisticated hype machine over there, complete with fanboy moderators who will "put you on our radar" if you dare to post anything other than a 100% rave about Comodo and buy whatever spin that Melih is selling. Ever since they pushed a forced-branding of Dragon about 6 or 7 releases back, I have lost a lot of trust in Comodo. They disabled theme changes somewhere around 16 or 17, put it back after an uproar, then for 2 versions disabled being able to use the New Tab Page - even if set, you opened up to comodo.com as your homepage instead of the non-web Chromium-Chrome style New Tab page. In both cases on the forum Melih made claims it shouldt have happened and would change.
I am not saying that they are lying about the source of the Privalert extension they pushed out. But it is amazingly similar. I am not saying they pushed the forced branding on purpose. But that means if it was an accident, one might suppose that they have bad QA, and if it were deliberate but not approved at the top, one might suppose that they have a flawed software quality process.
Note that I said: "one might suppose" and I specifically denied the interpretation that "they are lying" so if you are a lawyer for Comodo, I didn't accuse your client of anything. I commented on how non-Comodo people might possibly perceive things which may or may not be true with no way for me to tell.
I continue to use some Comodo products. But until I see more transparency about these seemingly-sketchy issues, I am reluctant to resume recommending them. Something I used to do wholeheartedly.
Really. It's now 2012 and there's still software that allows automatic installation of stuff from the internet.
Fucking computer programmers are incompetent assholes. If cars were designed and engineered as poorly as this then the automakers would be sued out of existence and we'd still be riding around on horses.
The coders responsible for this utter shit are fucking retards that haven't learn jack shit from history and shouldn't be allowedanywhere near a computer. Let alone allowed to releae their shit onto the general public..
I know I make good choices about what to download and you think you do too, but non-tech users make really weird decisions - they ask me about what I think are the most obvious things (advanced system care want to update should I let it? - yeah, like I told you ten times already, I installed asc to take care of your system) then find they agreed to stuff installing without checking, like when it reported their computer full of viruses; another time a box popped up in their browser from microsoft asking for their bank account details to reset their password, so because it was microsoft they sent it all off god knows where. I explain using a computer with no technical knowledge is like driving a car without knowing how to drive - it can be ok, but it's usually worth learning how to drive to save on accidents. No matter how many times i say what is safe and what isn't they continue to behave like they discovered the internet yesterday. no wonder some companies go for the silent install. I don't like it (I hate it - it's my machine and I decide what happens to it) but i can understand why some companies give up explaining to the general user and just do it